I thank my opponent for the opportunity to debate this topic. The implications of this resolution are very far-reaching and could change society greatly.

I believe that people should have the right to reproduce so long as they do it in a manner that doesn't infringe on the rights of others. In this debate, the burden of proof should be shared as I will attempt to show that people should be able to reproduce, and pro attempts to show that low iq individuals should not be allowed to produce.

Rebuttals:

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link."

Comparing modern society's relation with low IQ individuals to a chain is not very accurate. For one thing, what number do you consider low to be? Is it merely below the 98 average in America? If so, half the population, including many succesful, powerful, and productive individuals will disagree in how "weak" their link is.

What really matters in society is one's ability to benefit other individuals in some way. One's contributions to society should be the real determiner in how much one is worth, and even then, all people are still given natural rights for simply being human. All people deserve to have the rights outline in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To read more on it, I'll provide the link to the UN website. (1)

"People with a low intelligence should not be able to reproduce. They can still have sex just not children."

People should be able to reproduce if they choose to. Just because they have low intelligence does not mean they are any less of a human than anyone else is. Not only this, but people with low intelligence don't necessarily produce low intelligence offspring. If this were true, then high intelligence individuals would never have existed. Genetic variation and mutations allow for high intelligence parents to produce low intelligence offspring, and low intelligence parents to produce high intelligence offspring. The probabilities of having intelligent offspring may be different depending on the parents' intelligence, but even then, it isn't a good justification to take away their right to raise a child. They could be loving, caring parents that are productive in society and both have good jobs. To take away their right to have a child, simply because you don't think they are smart enough to be part of a metaphorical "strong chain", is wrong.

Arguments:

Determining Intelligence

A big problem with this idea is actually figuring out how intelligent someone is. IQ tests are very unreliable as they don't take into account differences in education, culture, and abilities that aren't taken into account in the IQ test. There are many people who have special abilities that would make other people consider them geniuses, yet wouldn't do well on an IQ test because they aren't good at other things. Obviously this is a problem with the philosophy behind eugenics, since people would desire their good traits to be passed down.

Environmental Disadvantages

The ability to do good on intelligence tests is highly related to where you live. When one is raised in a country with a high level of education, such as Japan, they are much more likely to do good on IQ tests. When raised in a country with low amounts of education, like Ethiopia, then you will do much more poorly. This is evident in the average IQs of the top and lowest countries.(2)

Of course, this doesn't mean that Ethiopians are naturally less intelligent than Japanese people, it just means they were raised in much worse circumstances and given much less opportunity than the Japanese. This is evident in the fact that those with ancestors from low-IQ contries that move to wealthy countries are just as capable of becoming successful and doing well on IQ tests as other individuals, so long as they are in the same income level.

So if we did use IQ tests as a way to determine whether someone should be allowed to reproduce, then many good people would be hurt from it. Having the ability to have a child is very important to most people in the world, and taking that away would cause a lot of harm. If low intelligence was defined as something like an IQ below 70, then a forced sterilization of people with low intelligence would cause a genocide in places like Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Entire cultures would disappear simply because the people didn't have the abilities to do good on a test that could not accurately determine their abilities to be intelligent. This is not what we want in our society.

Reasons for voting decision: Conduct: FF. Argument: Pro argued that people are in fact chains... Con put together something. Sources: Con used them.
SUGGESTION: Con you put some work into this, so you may want to post a modified version as a challenge (perhaps with the contender selecting which group should be sterilized).

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